


but for a thing so known

by norikae



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Character Study, M/M, and josh.... well he is just a Lad, everything is sun and sand and sea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-04 13:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21198689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norikae/pseuds/norikae
Summary: Somehow - he doesn’t know why - it hadn’t been that answer he’d expected. He’s taken a few steps back shorewards, so now the waves are licking at his ankles. Junhui looks down, watches shells swimming in on the tide and disappearing under with the next lull, and thinks about how the large beautiful ones must surely be further out, lodged against the slanting seabed, steadfast against the currents.





	but for a thing so known

**Author's Note:**

> _all that was shown to me, sunlight_  
_something so known to me, sunlight oh sunlight_  
_all of your love is sunlight_  
_all of your love is sunlight_  

> 
> this is not beta read. thank you and good luck

The ride there is long and bumpy.

When Junhui steps off the bus his knees buckle, legs weak from hours of being rattled about like an ill fated frog in a soup can. The sun is just sinking below the horizon amidst a watery sky; he has to squint against it get a good view of Naver maps.

"Head North," he reads, thoughtfully. "Alright! Great!" He looks up around, smiling blindly. "...Where's North?"

The sun, hazy in its retiring hours, has for him no answer. He considers it for a while, then picks a direction and starts walking, figuring the little GPS pointer is bound to catch up to him eventually. 

After a few false starts, it does. It's past eight in the evening when Junhui is wrestling with the keys he'd been given to the property, trying his best to just _get in_ so he can put his things down, take a shower, and sink into whatever bed there is for a nice, long rest.

The knob _click_s. He allows himself a small victory dance as he kicks his suitcase in, and lets himself in after it. In the grey-blue night the space is sparse, but neatly kept; the tenant had put things to order before moving out, he guesses. His parents never really update him on these things; they know he isn't likely to take note.

"Hello," he voices out loud, smiling broadly at the way the echo seems to give the house a voice to greet him back with. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

After a second of waiting on a response Junhui takes it upon himself to turn the lights on, bathing the room in a warm glow. The space is decidedly more cosy like this, he thinks - looks more like the childhood home he distantly remembers.

There is the sound of a squeak-crack as the house shifts, contracting in the night. It jolts Junhui out of a momentary reverie; he takes hold of his suitcase handle, and wheels it in in search of his old room, thinking he'd best take a shower, unpack, and go to bed.

-

What it is, after all, is nothing more than pure accident. 

He's ducked into a stall to peruse its selection, caught between simply getting a bottle of soda or indulging in an ice cream. The difference isn't about price; it's about his mother's voice in his head, lecturing him on the health related perils of consuming too much sugar too much of the time.

It's not like he indulges every day, or even like his mother really minds what he chooses to eat anymore. He's fully grown, after all. But the lesson sticks, welded to his decisionmaking apparatus by an extra dose of piety, and Junhui is stuck looking to and from the chilled drinks and freezer indecisively, weighing the pros and cons over and over again in the hope that he'll convince the balance to tip definitively either way.

"Whoa," says a voice, and Junhui startles, hands jolting into the air with his own surprise. He hadn't noticed any one there. Turning around, he's about to apologise when there's an almost palpable shift in the air, and the person says, tone funny, "Junhui?"

"Eh?" Junhui looks up, from where his hands are held out in front of him in a position preemptively apologetic and also distancing, and meets a stunned gaze set in a thin, oddly familiar face. "Sorry," he apologises, because he was raised well, and then, less properly, "But who are you?"

Something flickers in that gaze. Confusingly, it bears a close resemblance to regret. "We went to school together," the boy says.

"Oh," Junhui replies, eyes and mouth round, when the image of his grade school, with its damp walls and eternal seabreeze, loads. "I'm sorry - I don't remember your -?"

"I was the only other Chinese kid in your class," the boy says, tone even but looking at him like he really should know better. Even without the necessary context Junhui feels appropriately chastised. 

A split second, before he realises they've been speaking in Mandarin this entire time. And then the recollection - "_Minghao_," he says, eyes blowing wide open. "Skipped a grade, always sat in front of the class! I remember you."

Minghao - newly re-met, newly remembered - stares back, gaze unmoving, but there is the barest twitch to his mouth as he does.

"Took you long enough," he says, drily. "So what brings you back here?"

-

Three days later Junhui is plastered to the wood of the boardwalk, watching petulantly as Minghao makes his way down the coastline back towards him, face shadowed by the wide brim of a ridiculous bucket hat.

"You look silly," he calls, watching Minghao upside down. Wrong-side-up, his slender form ghosts along the shoreline.

"You're going to burn," Minghao says in response, a good five or ten minutes later when he's actually close enough to be heard without straining himself. "Why are you right smack out in the middle of the sun, anyway?"

Junhui squints back thoughtfully, all of a sudden feeling the burn of his gently roasting skin. "I was too lazy to move," he suggests, head cocked as Minghao raises a skeptical brow in reply. "The shade's so far away." And the heat isn't awful, not yet; on the far edge of spring the days are tolerable, still, even if the sun is relentless already.

Minghao glances up the beach, to the line of houses not twenty metres from where they are. "Right," he echoes, clearly disbelieving. "Come on. My shift's nearly up, we can go indoors."

Junhui leaps up at that, excited at the prospect of company. Minghao snorts but doesn't say anything further as he turns to head in, clearly trusting that Junhui would follow.

In the shade, Junhui inspects his skin for any redness as Minghao swirls his iced tea, staring at him like there's something to figure out.

"You want to get a job or something?" he asks, apropos of nothing.

Junhui hums. His own lemonade is tart on his tongue. "Why not."

He glances up in time to catch Minghao's luxuriant eyeroll. "Not an answer," Minghao retorts, biting.

"What ever is," Junhui sings back, a question, and something in Minghao's face flickers briefly. It looks - no, he doesn't know what it is.

"They're looking for another lifeguard," Minghao tells him anyway. "You can swim, right?"

Junhui grins crookedly in lieu of response. "'Course I can," he says, proud. "When do I start?"

-

There's hardly anyone out here in the day. 

Junhui treads too close to the water, feet tickled along the line of the shore, and is careful to avoid seashells on his way to Minghao, a slash in all-black further along the horizon.

Minghao notices, when he's maybe 50 metres away, and turns towards him, the squint obvious despite the fact that he's still too far away for Junhui to make out his face. "Myungho-ya," Junhui calls, both hands cupped around his mouth, then he stops and laughs. "No. Minghao!"

Minghao glances back behind him one more time, like he's double checking nobody's midway drowning before he goes over to humour Junhui. "What?" he says, matching Junhui's switch. "Stop being a pain, we're on the job."

He'd been agonisingly polite for the first two days, Junhui reminisces, watching the water lap insistently at his feet. But he thinks he likes it more that Minghao is treating him like this now - it fits, settles easy on the edges around them. Sand, limned all around by sea.

"I wanted to ask you," he chirps, pulling his arms up into a luxurious stretch above his head. "Why'd they hire another guard when the beach looks like this?"

Minghao shrugs. "Precisely because. You need more eyes to pick out a singular figure without the benefit of a commotion, see."

Junhui nods slowly, digesting. "So if there's a thousand people out here it's okay if it's just you?" he asks, tilting his head, eyes blinking in question.

Minghao gives him a look that almost seems to say _good guess, but did you do the supplementary reading?_. "We need a bunch of people for that too," he says, mouth twitching like he's privy to a joke he isn't about to explain any time soon. "What if two people are in danger at the same time?"

"Then you didn't answer my question," Junhui complains, hand pointing out in accusation. "Isn't this the exact time you'd be more than sufficiently staffed?"

Minghao gives him a look that, Junhui is positive, doesn't actually mean anything. "You wouldn't have to ask if you knew," he replies, and toes a small splash of sand into the air. "Pay more attention around here, will you?"

That leaves him with more questions than he'd started with. "I'm starting to think you're just messing with me," he comments out loud, sticking his foot into the water to rinse it of the sand that stuck to it when Minghao kicked it up. 

"Is this all a scam, maybe?" He guesses, wildly. "Are my paychecks even gonna go through?"

Minghao does crack a grin at that, turning on his heel and going back to his end of the blinding white. He _does_ call, behind him, "Stay tuned to find out!" as he goes.

If he's being picky, really, there's not an answer to be found. But from another point of view - all in all, Junhui thinks, it seems to check out. Because sea water, after all, is still water, no matter how many times it crashes to shore.

-

"So your parents decided to kick you off somewhere you wouldn't be in their way," Mingyu repeats, crunching noisily on a hazelnut ice cream bar at the table in his own dining room. The chocolate shell cracks loudly with a bite when he pauses, and grins toothily. "That's an effective type of childcare, if ever I'd heard'a one."

Mingyu's friendly gaze is somehow heavily appraising; Junhui arranges himself very neatly, double-checking that he isn't taking up any more space than he strictly has to. "I can take care of myself," he says on reflex. 

It sounds overly defensive, but he can't take it back now. He half regrets taking Minghao's best friend up on the offer to pop by and _just hang out, you know, and do what we always do_, which was code for nothing, as it were, out here in the boondocks.

Mingyu's eyebrows draw up in surprise, eyes pulled open as if taken aback by what he'd seemed to have unintentionally said. "Oh, for sure, for sure," he amends, tone too earnest to be anything but. "I mean, they wouldn't _let_ you be out here otherwise."

The brief misunderstanding is immediately resolved. Junhui lets himself relax just another fraction, and then says, "S'pose so. But anyway. How'd you two meet?"

Minghao has been in the kitchen for the past fifteen minutes - doing what, Junhui hadn't been sure it was his place to ask. There's a strange distance surrounding Minghao, half the time, one that makes even the mildest of interactions potentially heavy. Mingyu purses his mouth thoughtfully, musing, and says, "First year of middle school?"

Junhui's mouth makes an 'o'. He'd moved to the city right after leaving grade school. "Same class?" 

Mingyu laughs, shakes his head. "Not til college, actually. He was in _your_ year academically, remember?"

So he was. Junhui had forgotten that fact. "Then?"

"I kind of ran into him on the 3rd day of school," Mingyu confesses. "Like, literally. Sent him flying a small ways and stuff. Felt so bad I followed him everywhere for a week and then after that…" He shrugs. "For life, I guess."

_For life, I guess._ The way it's said, deceptively light. Junhui chews on the inside of his cheek and says, "Maybe Myungho is just the kind of guy you run into. We met again because he happened to recognise me at the corner store, y'know?"

Mingyu's eyes widen like Junhui has said something of considerable depth and importance. "No way," he says, impressed. "After so many years?"

Junhui shrugs. He hadn't given much thought to that fact. "Yeah, I guess he's got a good memory. You say you’re in college together?"

Mingyu frowns, a dip forming between his brows. But he doesn't voice the question. "Yeah, he took a gap year after high school so we could finally match up."

"Oh." Junhui remembers Minghao as studious, practical, to the point. He wonders how important something would have to be for him to give up a year of his time. "That's really cool, to have a friend like that."

Mingyu cocks his head slightly, doglike. "I guess?" He doesn't sound like he quite understands what Junhui means. Like he's never had the lack thereof that would be necessary for him to take the point. "He gets mad at me sometimes, but we're still best friends."

"I wouldn't get mad if you stopped pissing me off." Minghao's voice floats over from the doorway, where he's stood half-leaned against the wooden frame, a massive tray of cut fruit in his bony hands. "Half the things he says, Junhui. You wouldn't believe."

Junhui looks from Minghao - a construction of angles and lines - to Mingyu, wrestling desperately with the last vestiges of his ice cream, hair askew. There’s chocolate all over his face; Junhui suppresses a foreign urge to reach out and smear it off with a thumb. “I think I could guess,” he jokes, watching the way Mingyu’s face predictably crumples with indignance.

“You can’t make him bully me too,” he whines, the last syllable oscillating between notes as he throws a small tantrum. “Junhui-hyung and I’ve just met, you don’t know if this could be something beautiful!” 

“Could it?” Minghao’s tone is dry; the cut fruits he sets on the table, when Junhui takes a bite, are not. “Ah, that’s right. Junhui. How long are you going to be here, anyway?”

“You don’t call him hyung,” Mingyu observes, eyes wide and posture curved, like he’s thinking with his entire body. 

Junhui laughs. “He didn’t give _any_ of us honorifics. I barely even remembered he was younger.” He stops to think. “Well. Maybe you should introduce them now, Myungho-ya. Didn’t you shift to be in the same year as Mingyu over here…?”

Minghao bites into a watermelon slice with an almost vindictive _crunch_. “Over my dead body,” he proclaims, flat. “Gyu. Maybe _you_ should start calling me hyung.”

“Hey, leave me out of this,” Mingyu protests, weakly. From the look of him, though, he’d give in, if Minghao asked. “Anyway. Junhui-hyung. When _are_ you here until?”

Junhui glances away, shifty. “All summer long, I guess. Or whenever my parents tell me to head back.”

Mingyu makes a noise of thought. “You still got what… three months?” He shares a brief look with Minghao, then turns back to face Junhui. “We can make a buncha great memories and have you the best summer ever! What d’you say?”

He doesn’t really know what he can. Junhui chances a glance back at Minghao, who’s watching them both, face carefully blank. “Yeah,” he says, cautiously. “Let’s.”

-

“Oh, my god,” Junhui says out loud, abruptly. 

His own voice echoes in the space of his old bedroom, quiet in the night. He’d initially been a little sad to find his childhood bed, shaped like a turtle, had been replaced with something more adult sized, but that dismay had faded when he realised that meant he could sleep there just like he used to. The rest of the decor had mostly been kept the same; the good thing about beach houses is that nobody expects them to _not_ look like that.

Rolling over, Junhui throws an arm over the edge of the bed to feel for the backpack he’d brought here, wrestling with a zip to pull it open. He wriggles his hand inside and feels around blindly until his hand closes around a familiar weight, and Junhui pulls it out with a small noise of victory, returning to his initial face-up position.

“I forgot about you,” he tells his phone, earnestly, and wriggles to get it plugged in. “I wonder if anyone has said anything.”

It’s a short wait for his phone to garner enough charge to boot up; Junhui stares at it until the notifications icons are popping into place. Most importantly, perhaps, there’s a Kakao chat from his best (only?) friend; Junhui slides it open promptly, wondering what Wonwoo has to say.

_jww_

are you dead

_jww_

junhui??? i know i said good riddance but i was KIDDING

_jww_

shit. well dude if youre really gone can i have your cat plushie

The messages are spaced out over a couple of days; the time stamp on the most recent reads two hours ago. Junhui scrambles to reply, indignant.

_moonjunnie^_^_

even if i die mr goyangi is coming with me. i love him too much you wouldnt understand

_jww_

you put exactly zero thought into naming it what do you mean love

_moonjunnie^_^_

you WOULDN’T. UNDERSTAND

It is now that his screen begins to blink; a pop up notification reads _Incoming Call from Jeon Wonwoo_, and Junhui rushes to pick up.

"I genuinely thought we'd lost you to the great beyond," is the first thing Wonwoo says when the call connects, completely deadpan. "How did you completely ignore me for a week."

"It was only a week," Junhui protests, indignant. "You've definitely ignored me for longer."

Wonwoo makes a noise that doesn't confirm or deny anything. "Fire Emblem is different," he says perfunctorily. "Anyway. What have you been up to, country boy?"

What, indeed. Junhui lifts his feet up above his face and stares at them as he thinks. "It's the _beach_," he says, like that really makes any difference and he isn't four hours south of Seoul. "Anyway. I don't know. Country things, I guess."

"Haha. Got you."

"What?"

"You said country things. You admit it after all."

"Howdy," Junhui says, obligingly. "Did you really call me just to make fun of me?"

"What else would I call you for, Junnie," Wonwoo says. "No. Well." A pause. "It's really weird when you're quiet, you know."

"Are you calling me noisy?"

Wonwoo hums. "I wonder. When were you coming back, again?"

"Eh." Junhui pulls the phone away from his ear to check the display. "When school starts back up, you do the math."

Wonwoo makes a noise of disbelief. "Mid _August?_ Junhui, it's like, May now. I know you took the sem off, but I thought you’d be back here for most of that, at least."

Junhui wriggles his toes, just to check they're all still there. "You'll hardly even notice I'm gone."

There's an odd silence in response to that, one that drags his sentence heavy, mires it in dust.

"Hmm," Wonwoo hums again, suddenly fuzzy behind layers of static, distance and land cleaved through by sea. "I wonder."

-

"Mingyu isn't here," Minghao says, first thing when he sees him, "Because he's a big baby who's afraid of the sea."

Junhui fiddles with the edges of his sleeveless shirt. "Is he really? I thought he said he liked to swim."

"He does," Minghao affirms. "But only indoors."

This is Jindo, though. Junhui raises his brows a little. "I see," he says, although that can't be all there is. "Anyway. Recruit Wen, reporting for his first day of training, sir!"

Minghao snorts, then nods with his head over to the side where a surfboard is jammed into the ground. "With any luck you’ll be able to ride that in a few weeks or so.” He stops, eyes Junhui’s frame critically. “You’ll probably make it.”

Something about the look makes his cheeks burn. Junhui grabs at his bare upper arm, for some reason suddenly conscious, and says, taking a few steps off the shore, “Let’s go, then!”

“Where are you going,” Minghao asks, dry. “The very basics start on land.” He does something with his foot that makes his upright surfboard slide to the ground, and looks expectantly at Junhui, who’s out in the water, briny sea swirling at his knees.

“Oh,” Junhui says, feeling foolish. He’d grown up here - spent a good twelve years amongst the sand and sea, run the length of this very beach barefoot over and over again until his skin split from the sun and his mother was lecturing him for not having completed his homework before absconding to play. You’d think he’d know something as simple as that. “I didn’t know that,” he says, because Minghao’s looking at him like he’s waiting for an answer.

Minghao tilts his head, the wisps of hair hanging over his forehead casting faint shadows when he moves. “That’s okay,” he states, matter-of-fact. “The whole point of this is that I can teach you.”

Somehow - he doesn’t know why - it hadn’t been that answer he’d expected. He’s taken a few steps back shorewards, so now the waves are licking at his ankles. Junhui looks down, watches shells swimming in on the tide and disappearing under with the next lull, and thinks about how the large beautiful ones must surely be further out, lodged against the slanting seabed, steadfast against the currents.

He takes a deep breath. “Please - and thank you,” Junhui says, slowly. He walks towards the board Minghao has chosen for him, notices it’s longer than Minghao’s, has _novice_ written all over it. He appreciates the consideration. 

“Okay,” he starts, when his voice seems to have settled enough for him to speak again. “So where do we begin?”

-

“You’re really boring for someone who has nothing to do for fun, you know.”

It’s the beginning of June; spring has finally taken her leave, leaving them with a brilliant clear sky and temperatures that scale day by day. Junhui speaks from the doorway, wetsuit dripping; Minghao doesn’t spare him even a glance as he secures equipment, dutifully checking to ensure everything is fixed properly.

There’s a _clink_ as a last chain is hooked into place. “Am I really,” Minghao asks, straightening up and turning around to face Junhui, eyebrow quirked. “Tell me more.”

He can’t help it; a grin is spreading across Junhui’s face even as Minghao approaches him, looking unimpressed. “In Seoul, see,” he explains, “In Seoul, all people do is use their phones and buy athleisure. So it’s natural that they’d be boring, right?”

Minghao plays along anyway, nodding as if Junhui makes the most sense in the world. “Naturally,” he says. He’s walked up to Junhui, who backpedals in turn to maintain an even distance between them; at the door he stops to lock the shed up, watching Junhui out of the corner of his eyes. “And then?”

“They have an excuse,” Junhui adds, completing his previous sentence. “And then,” he pronounces, boisterously. “There’s you, and you live out here with all this - this sand, and no buildings or shops or things, and you’d think that would make you fun by sheer necessity, but you’re…. Y’know.” He stops, and beams. “Not.”

Minghao pauses to consider. “We have shops,” he retorts, eventually.

Junhui laughs at this, a bark-cackle of delight. “You’re not even gonna tell me I’m wrong?”

Minghao rolls his eyes, comes to stand in front of Junhui. Spine rigid and drawn up to his full height he’s only a little shorter; his nostrils twitch a little as he says, “I can’t imagine I’d get anywhere trying to convince you otherwise.”

There’s a flicker of a moment Junhui wouldn’t be able to explain. The tone of his voice - the sweep of his lashes - he’s looking at Minghao’s mouth as it curls into his trademark expression of not-quite-disdain, and he’s thinking _how _would _you?, _but he’s been out in the sun and his wetsuit is sticky as it dries and there’s no breeze along the beach.

He chokes back a breath. “I was kidding,” he tells him, after a pause. “You’ve been real patient with this surfing thing and stuff.” Pause. “Thanks.”

Minghao shrugs. “Like you said, there’s not that much to do out here. ‘Least if you can surf that’s one more activity for you.”

It’s a lot more consideration than Junhui had been expecting. “Thanks,” he says again, unsure of what to do with himself now. “I guess I could hit the surf while you and Mingyu are at school. The sea is my only friend, ha-ha.”

Minghao crosses his arms over his chest. “Make sure someone’s on duty,” he says. “And don’t go too far out even if you do.”

The thing about Minghao is - there is something unshakeable about him that overrides Junhui’s internalised self-defeatism, joking or not. Junhui thinks about standing in the tide and letting the waves drag him deeper, tugging sand out from under him and crashing in with more until he’s knee deep in it, barely budging against its pull. Something about giving to be moored in return.

He shakes himself out of it. “Hey, wanna get ice cream?” he offers, taking a step back and focusing very hard on the grain of the boardwalk. “I’ll pay.”

-

It's hot - a redundancy of description in the season they're in - and Junhui is face up on his bed, sheets off and blessedly, blessedly indoors. He’d been texting Wonwoo earlier, but he’s stopped replying - probably paying attention in class for once - and Junhui considers starting a game marathon or something just so he has something to take his mind off the unbearable swelter.

Sluggishly, he rolls over onto his side, where his phone is lying face down on the mattress. Maybe he could text Minghao instead - if he doesn’t have class, they could go do something. Or, rather, Junhui could pitch the idea and repeat it enough times until Minghao gives in and consents to be dragged along.

He makes a grab towards his phone, but shuns away from it at the last moment, as if burnt. _You’ve seen him like, three times this week, and it’s Friday._ Minghao’s probably sick of him by now, come to think of it. Junhui stares blankly at his phone. His fingers itch.

Well. Game marathon it is, then. Junhui has just begun the arduous task of sitting up so he can crawl towards the foot of his bed to examine the paltry collection of games he’s brought along when there is a chime that sounds distinctly like the doorbell.

“Huh,” Junhui says, mostly to himself but also perhaps for the benefit for any well-meaning magical folk that may be hiding nearby. He’s not the sort of guy to rule that out. “A visitor?”

No elfin voice pops up to tell him he’s right, so with a hefty sigh he removes himself from his bed and makes his way to the front door, not bothering to look through the peep hole before he opens it to greet whoever it is who’s on the other side.

“Hi!” The voice is bright, and very cheery. “I brought you some of that spicy instant hotpot you like. Can I come in?”

Vaguely taken aback, Junhui stares at Mingyu’s beaming visage with no small amount of confusion. “I - sure. Um.” He stands aside, pushing the door open with his body as he does. “I didn’t know you were coming over, though.”

Mingyu shrugs, making a bright little sound to himself as he makes his way in and sets a plastic bag Junhui recognises to be from the corner convenience store as he does. “We’re friends! I thought you wouldn’t mind if I surprised you in your lonely little life.”

Junhui huffs out a laugh, but only because the sound helps to create a physical distraction from how Mingyu has unintentionally hit far, far too close to home. “Fair enough,” he says. “I was just about to game myself into oblivion.” 

Mingyu smiles toothily. “See?” he says. “Dropped by to save you from tedium!”

If he’s to be perfectly honest, Mingyu’s boundless optimism is infectious. _Friend, huh._ Junhui reciprocates the smile with very little difficulty this time. “I should be so grateful for this honour, then,” he jokes.

Mingyu’s standing against a chair, all his weight on one leg, the other hip cocked as he watches Junhui, smiling absently. Then he says, apropos of nothing, “I think I can see why he likes you so much.”

Junhui chokes on his next inhale. “I’m sorry, what?”

The expression that crosses Mingyu’s face next could perhaps best be called surprise, but Mingyu doesn’t voice it. Instead, he continues, “He doesn’t like just _anyone_, you know. Or anyone in general, I don’t think. He’s all distant like that.”

_He’s talking about Minghao_, Junhui realises. _Fair enough. But why?_

When he doesn’t respond in time, Mingyu continues. “I’ve known him for a decade, and he spends more time with you than with me.” There’s a slight jut to his bottom lip. Before Junhui can formulate a response he’s shaking his head, as if physically tugging himself out of a mood. “You’re good, though,” he hurriedly assures. “I like you, Junhui-hyung. You’re great to have around.”

Junhui wonders, distantly, what it is he’s accidentally stepped into this time round. He clears his throat, once, then looks around - his gaze lands on his Switch, and with a jolt he remembers what he’d been intending to do before his unexpected visitor. 

Junhui picks it up, and holds it towards Mingyu - as an invitation, perhaps as a defacto peace offering. “There’s nothing much to do ‘round here,” he explains, gesticulating to make his point. “Wanna play?”

-

It’s two nights later that Junhui finds himself reaching for the electric kettle in lieu of cooking any actual dinner, remembering the instant hotpot Mingyu had gifted him on his visit. The day has been long - he’d begged Minghao to take him to the arcade he’d just found out existed not too long of a drive away, and in all the dust and creaking machines he’d found out that Minghao was a lot better at Parapara than he’d have guessed.

The moves are stuck in his head. Junhui absently marks the actions as he surveys his cupboards, thinking. He’s reaching for one to check if he had indeed stashed the hotpot there when his phone starts ringing; Junhui changes course and picks up without stopping to check the caller ID.

“Hi mum,” he greets, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder as he goes back to rifling through his drawers. “Yeah, not much. Just making dinner.”

“_Are you eating real food?_”

Junhui pauses mid-silent whoop, having just discovered the pot in a drawer above the sink. The ingredient list stares accusingly back at him. “Yeah,” he says, very unconvincingly. “When have I ever not?”

A longsuffering sigh filters through static. “_I raised you. You’re eating instant noodles again, aren’t you?_”

Junhui lets out something like a whine. “No I’m not, I’m telling you, I’m making - uh -” he glances about. “- Sichuan vegetable soup! I found the vegetables stocked in the corner store here, you know?” It’s true - he had - but he didn’t buy them, is the thing.

His mother’s tone softens. “_That’s good. If you miss anything, just let mummy know, and I’ll cook it for you when you’re back._”

Now he feels bad for the white lie. Junhui blows out his cheeks, petulantly, and doesn’t rip the foil cover off the way he was about to. Instead he meanders out of the kitchen, transferring the phone to his hand, and plops himself down onto the couch in the living room to talk to her. “Feels like a lifetime away,” he jokes, halfheartedly.

“_About that_,” comes the reply, somewhat hesitantly. “_We heard from Wonwoo that you’re not having the best time there_.”

Junhui’s mouth opens instinctively to protest. “I didn’t say that,” he says, even though he knows very well where Wonwoo would’ve gotten that impression, with the way Junhui has been blowing up his phone with texts about how bored he is. “It’s not like anybody’s mean to me here, or anything.”

Yet another sigh. He’d forgotten how often his mother does that when talking to him. “_Yes, he told us you were bored out of your mind. I’m well aware.” _Pause. “_We sent you there because you needed the time off_,” she says, and then, very carefully, “_Junhui. Do you want to come home?_”

His instinctive response is to blurt _yes_ \- but it doesn’t come out, wedged back down his windpipe by something he can’t quite place that has suddenly surged up. “I mean,” he says, when the silence drags too long, “It isn’t that bad.”

His mother _tsks_. “_That’s not an answer. I would’ve thought you’d have been really excited to leave._”

He’d thought the same, too. And yet. Junhui thinks about what Mingyu had said, two days before, and thinks about the push and pull of tides, their cycle of high and low. The decision isn’t so clear anymore.

“I’ll think about it and let you know,” he offers weakly, because if it isn’t his parent’s wishes keeping him here - then, then. 

The outdated television set perched atop a low set of cabinets doesn’t have anything to add to his conundrum. Junhui counts the beats when he exhales. “Anyway, uh, my food is gonna burn, I’ll call you back, okay? Gotta go, love you mum, bye!”

After the click the room is suddenly a little bit too large, and deafeningly silent. Junhui waits a beat, and then picks the phone back up, and flips through the numbers until he’s calling the takeout place two streets down.

-

“Have you heard of them?”

Junhui tears his gaze away from the LP sleeve he's been squinting at to see a boy looking up at him with wide eyes set above a sharp, high nose, and lips with a perfect cupid's bow. He looks like a pixie, Junhui thinks, then realises he's been quiet for a beat too long.

"Uh, no," he admits, setting the record back down and tucking both his hands behind his back, feeling inexplicably like a chastised schoolboy. "I just liked the colours, that's all."

Pixie boy looks surprised at this, leaning against the bin and crossing his arms. "Really," he asks. "You've never heard _Wonderwall?_"

Junhui doesn't how to tell the boy - whom he's just realised is in a faded blue polo tee with _Joshua _scribbled on a nametag appended to it in ungainly script - that his childhood is coloured by the likes of Anita Mui, not these strange American rock men. He shrugs with one shoulder. "Not really my thing," he says, evasively.

Joshua nods understandingly, his head going up and down in an almost dizzying motion. "Fair, fair," he says, brushing a hand over the cover. "They're kind of assholes, anyway. You're not missing much, classics or not."

He thinks back to the singers his parents favour, and tries to imagine the same being said of any of them. It feels odd. "Oh," he says. "Well. Thanks, then."

Joshua beams. "Don't mention it," he says, and then he sticks a hand out in invitation. "I'm Joshua, by the way. I've never seen you around here - you new?"

Junhui timidly takes the offered hand, and, after a beat, shakes it. "In a sense," he tells him. And then, because the name is foreign and it's only fair, "Are you?"

Joshua tilts his head, blinking owlishly, visibly caught off guard for a moment. Then he laughs, those wide sharp eyes creasing into crescents, and says, "I see."

Does he? Junhui waits, patiently, until Joshua says, "I moved here in middle school, so you must've left by then."

So he does. "A lot has changed," Junhui comments, casting a fleeting glance back at the Oasis record. "This used to be a bookstore."

Joshua laughs at that, a strange cross between a peal and a bark. "It was," he agrees. "Until Uncle Hong said he wanted to keep with the times."

Junhui remembers a late middle aged man, heavy of brow and generous with the snack jar. "By selling vinyl in the 21st century in Jindo?"

Joshua winks at him, conspiratorially, and shoots him a finger gun that feels distinctly like something out of an old sitcom from somewhere off the other side of the world. "Exactamundo," he croons, then laughs again. "I mean, we get some business, but it's usually the _ajusshi_ crowd. A demographic change, surely, but an update it is not."

Junhui feels a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. It feels like throwing two images over each other, calibrating them until a picture comes into view. "I was wondering why there's still a manhwa section out in front."

His newfound acquaintance cocks his head and snorts. "Uncle thinks it'll keep our clientele young. Not so sure it's working so far though."

Junhui blows a gust of air out through his teeth, and makes for the racks near the front on impulse. "I'll buy one," he offers, spotting some familiar titles as he nears. Suddenly he is five again, holding a basketball manhwa open by his desk light and mouthing the words to himself to commit them to memory. Preemptively, "It's completely no trouble."

Joshua beams at him. "Really?" he chirps, pleased. "You don't have to, but it'd be cool if you did."

Junhui shakes his head distractedly, perusing the titles. "It makes me nostalgic, anyway. Think it'd be nice."

They lapse into an easy quiet as Junhui picks out his manhwa. It gently picks back up into a drizzle of small talk as Joshua rings up his order, speaking about the weather and other things of mild interest. 

There is something to the lilt of his words that makes Junhui listen - perhaps the faint clumsiness of his cadence akin to Junhui's when he gets agitated, only different somehow. He's trading lighthearted barbs with Joshua about being in a dying industry when his phone lights up with a notification.

_minghao_

Mingyu and I going to the movies

Wanna come, city boy?

He taps out his reply embarrassingly fast, grabbing his paper bag and promising to visit Joshua again sometime soon before bolting out of the door.

_moonjunnie^_^_

dont you guys even THINK about leaving without me

_minghao_

And miss you realising we do in fact have cinemas?

Wouldn't dream of it.

-

The burble of the small restaurant they're seated in is mild and emanates from a crowd about as young as they are, the hour bleeding into the small digits of the morning. It isn't pretty, by any means; Junhui eyes something that looks a mighty lot like mould, climbing along the seam of wall and ceiling, and sips idly at his iced tea.

"The thing is that villains could save themselves a lot of trouble," Minghao is saying, eyes bright and mouth quirked at the corners, "If they just cut out all the monologues and went in for the kill."

Mingyu's shaking his head, mouth pursed. "What about the fun? The _drama_? There's no point in a villain who doesn't want to back up his cause, Myungho-ah."

"But if he _really_ cared about his cause," Minghao shoots back, long fingers unfolding elegantly to gesticulate in line with his point, "He'd make sure he got it done _before_ going off on a tangent. See?"

Mingyu frowns, and folds his arms across his chest. "I do _not,"_ he says plainly, even though the tone of his voice says he probably acknowledges Minghao's point and just doesn't want to give in. "You haven't considered that maybe… He…"

Minghao nods along, amusement clear in his eyes. "He?"

It’s clear Mingyu hasn’t thought that far. His mouth hangs open for a moment, suspended. “He,” he says, and then glances shiftily at Junhui. The message in his eyes is clear - _help_, it says, _he’s gonna make fun of me again._

It’s difficult to resist that look. Junhui jumps in, helpfully, and says, “Maybe if the hero really listened, he’d change his mind. Right? And then we get two powerful guys on the same side!”

Mingyu jumps onto the line Junhui has cast gratefully. “Yeah, yeah,” he agrees, nodding fervently. “Aren’t we all heroes in our own story? It’s a matter of _perspective_!”

Minghao violently blows a gust of air out through his nose, rolling his eyes simultaneously. “Perhaps,” he allows, very givingly. “I’ve gotta piss. Anyone wanna come with?”

They both shake their heads, so Minghao shrugs and takes his leave. Mingyu watches until he’s out of earshot, and then leans forward, whispering conspiratorially, “He _never_ lets me win arguments.”

“Really?” Junhui blinks, tilting his head. “He just did though? Maybe you don’t notice it.”

Mingyu scrunches up his face and nose. “No, what I was saying was - ok, listen, nevermind. You…” He sighs. “I wanted to ask you a favour, anyway.”

Junhui reaches for his cup again, and luxuriously slurps through the dual straws he’s installed into it. “Yeah?”

“This might sound a little silly,” Mingyu starts, stuttering a little. “But could you teach me how to say his name?”

Now he’s confused. “Myungho?” Junhui asks. “You got a really weird way of being funny sometimes, Mingyu-ya.”

“No, no, no,” Mingyu says, shaking his head so his hair flies everywhere while he’s doing it. His voice lowers, but he’s earnest as he continues. 

“I meant, like, in Chinese. I never… never really realised it would be any different, I guess. And sometimes you call him that even if you’re speaking to him in Korean so I can understand you guys. And I guess I just…” He looks down at his hands, fiddling with his own empty cup. “I thought that I ought to learn.”

“_Oh_.” Junhui sits up, paying attention now. “It’s _Minghao_. Um, in Korean we’d spell it like -” he scrambles for a napkin and for the pen they’d placed their orders on the little paper chit with, spelling the transliteration out in Korean. Done, he shows it to Mingyu. “Can you read this?”

Mingyu does, very carefully. Junhui beams to show him he’s doing well. 

“Yeah, and then you just add the tones. Um, there are four tones, and in his name you use the second and the fourth, but honestly the _Ming_ is more important here, you can kinda drop the tone on the _hao_… sorry, am I rambling?”

_Minghao_, Mingyu is mouthing along, and then he says it aloud properly, trying again. It’s a decent effort; Junhui offers his fist for a little bump, encouragingly. “Something like that!” he says brightly.

There is a brightness in Mingyu’s eyes that was not there before. “Thank you so much, hyung,” he says. “Oh - what about yours? I wanna learn, too.”

Junhui smiles, waves him off. “It sounds nearly the same,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”

He can see the pout as it materialises on Mingyu’s face, how his mouth opens to protest. But then Minghao’s dropping back into his seat, peering curiously between them. “This atmosphere is strange,” he comments offhandedly. “What have you two been up to?”

Mingyu exhales all of a sudden, then grabs at Minghao to get his attention, mouth open like he’s about to make a massive proclamation. Mildly, Minghao twists back to watch him, brows raised. “‘Gyu?”

It takes him a few tries before he gets it out. “Minghao,” Mingyu says, like it’s a statement more than anything else, and then he grins. It’s far from native, and sounds clunky at the edges, but it pulls a small surprised _oh_ from Minghao anyway, who looks from him to Junhui, gaze questioning.

“You taught him?” He asks, sounding slightly impressed.

Junhui tilts his head to one side in lieu of giving anything like a positive answer. “I didn’t really do anything,” he confesses. “He wanted to know.”

“Ten years, Mingyu,” Minghao jibes, earning an indignant noise and a shove that makes him laugh. “Took you long enough.”

“It’s not like you ever told me,” Mingyu complains. “Junhui-hyung is nicer to me than you’ve ever been!”

Minghao says something else in return - and Mingyu retorts back, but Junhui isn’t paying attention. He is too caught instead by the way Minghao’s gaze shutters briefly when their lines of sight meet, like he’s thinking about something else, and Junhui wonders, if he knocked, whether he would be let in.

-

As the days shift further into summer he knows schools are staggering into break mode, but the beach doesn’t seem to be taking on the same crowded character he associates with summers back in Seoul. Junhui thinks it might be the nigh obscene heat, peeling him open and placing each of his organs out on display, neatly arranged in a butcher's showcase warmed by heat lamps.

...Or not, he doesn't know. Sometimes he lets himself get carried away by metaphors.

"You spend a _lot_ of time on the floor, Myungho was right.”

Junhui peers halfheartedly up at Mingyu, shirtless and barefoot in the sand. He’s sprawled out on the beach towel without so much as an umbrella to save him from the sun; despite the late hour the air and ground are steaming, warmed to boiling by a full day of sun. “Hold on. Let me just get the shade for you.”

“It takes less effort to be lying down than to be upright,” Junhui narrates wisely, holding a hand up and gesticulating towards the sky. It stares back at him, clouds dyed orange and grey by the last rays of day, and does not take his lesson. “Especially in this oven.”

An arc of octagonal edges of fabric cuts into his vision, hiding his conversational partner from view. “True,” Mingyu concedes. “I can’t believe Myungho got you to learn how to surf with that kind of attitude, though.”

Junhui blows a raspberry at the umbrella. “It was a life skill!” he protests, even though it wasn’t really. “And anyway it was kinda fun. Which reminds me, you don’t like the sea?”

“_Ah_, was he defaming me again,” Mingyu sighs, coming around the edge of the now set up umbrella to squat next to it, peering in at Junhui. “Yeah, kinda. See, I really hate sharks. But I can stay near the shore, no problem.”

“Are there even sharks here?” Junhui asks, rolling over onto his side and propping his head up on his arm so he can look at Mingyu properly. 

Mingyu shrugs. “Iunno,” he says. “You never know when one might get lost. When that happens I’d like to be out of jaw’s reach, thank you very much.”

Junhui laughs. “Fair,” he says, then sits up. “Anyway. The look you’re giving me and the ball you’re holding tells me you want me to join you guys for a game.”

Mingyu grins even wider, fingers tapping a tattoo on the ball in his grasp. “How’d you guess?” 

“Must be psychic,” Junhui mutters, getting to his feet and toeing on his flip flops. “Alright, alright. I see Myungho coming. I’M COMING, I’M COMING, YOU CAN STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” 

When he slides his gaze back to Mingyu he’s met with a raised brow. Junhui coughs, slightly embarrassed. “Ah. Well. You know how he can be a nag.”

Mingyu snorts, and shakes his head. “Yeah, tell me about it,” he says. He turns back, and waves at Minghao. “Anyway. Race you to the net!”

"The final score is," Minghao announces cheerfully, slumped in the sand with his forearms resting on his knees as he squints at them. "Myungho 20, Junhui 3, Mingyu zero. I win, and both of you owe me a meal."

"Did you just swap our scores?!" Mingyu demands, aghast. "I definitely won EVERY round of that. You - Seo Myungho - oi -!"

Minghao keels over to the sand, laughing, scrawny arms coming up to fend off Mingyu's attack. "Apologise!"

"You can't make me," Minghao manages between his giggles. "Ah - Kim Mingyu, you know I'm ticklish - fine, _fine! _Okay! You won! Happy?"

Mingyu sits back on his haunches, satisfied. "Yep," he chirps. "Both of you, I'd like some ddukbokki and an iced tea, please and thank you."

Junhui, who has until now been peacefully watching this altercation, squints at him. "From auntie Park's?" he asks.

Mingyu shoots him a one-handed finger gun. "You got it, dude," he drawls. "I'll just chill out here until you guys are back."

It's long turned dark; if they had any sense they'd all head indoors together. But at night the beach is devoid of anyone else, and holds a stillness Junhui cannot deny is comforting - as he turns to set back towards the boardwalk, he is startled by a bump against his side. 

It's Minghao, of course. "We can get soju while we're at it," he suggests. Junhui nods, and they lapse into a quiet, Minghao keeping pace with Junhui close enough that their arms knock together every other beat, a comforting presence.

The walk to the shop doesn't take long. They place their orders and wait outside until their number is called, and when Minghao comes back out with the plastic bags there's something about his silhouette, backlit by fluorescence and the salt in the air, that gives Junhui pause. 

"Minghao," he says. "Wait."

Minghao turns, head cocked. "Yeah?"

"I think," Junhui blurts, mouth racing along far too quickly for his mind to keep up. "I really like you."

Minghao blinks, and the night skips a beat. Junhui inhales, and exhales, and the air is still the same. 

Finally his expression shifts. "Junhui," Minghao starts. "I would never have expected that you would be so selfish."

A tightness makes itself visible in his face, and Junhui feels his heart sink into the ground. "That's not what I meant," he says, pushing off the bannister to follow after Minghao, who has wordlessly turned to leave. "Minghao - sorry. I wasn't thinking, you can pretend I never said -"

"But you did," Minghao retorts, cutting. He stops, abruptly, and pivots around to face Junhui. "And you should know I can't."

Junhui doesn't know what to say to make it better. Thinks there might not be. He takes a step forward, hesitantly, and then catches himself, unsure.

It is Minghao who breaks the silence. "Let's head back," he says, at length, turning back and beginning to walk again. "We shouldn't keep Mingyu waiting."

-

"_You sound different from a few weeks ago. Junhui_." His mother's voice is warm even across so much sea. "_Do you want to come home?_"

His response catches in his throat, trips along several switches. _Yes_, he wants to say. _No._

"It's only July," he manages, fiddling with a tourist trinket resting on the kitchen counter. He thinks Mingyu must have left it there. "I don't have to, yet."

His mother sighs, again exasperated. "_It's about what you _want, _Junhui,_" she lectures, softly. "_Sometimes I hate having to remind you, but this is about your choice._"

_That's the problem,_ Junhui thinks. He's never been very good at asserting a decision when presented to him.

"I know, mum," he says, anyway. A dull ache is beginning to twang in his bones. "I'll let you know."

-

He's not sure how they got here, but he's on a deck chair on Joshua-from-the-record-store's balcony, staring blankly at the stars as the other boy picks away at his guitar, mumbling to himself as he goes.

"There are so many stars out here," Junhui says suddenly, when staring at the tiny specks of white in so much inky black starts to make him dizzy. "It's creeping me out."

Joshua looks up at him, lips pursed in amusement. "Really?"

"Seriously," Junhui insists. "Doesn't it practically feel like they're chasing you? Mocking you your terrestrial lot?"

That gets Joshua to stop playing, setting his guitar horizontally on his lap as he rests his elbow on it. "Wow," he drawls. "Who hurt you, dude?"

_Well_, Junhui thinks, then opts not to answer. "I never see stars in Seoul. It's weird, that's all."

"Seoul, huh," Joshua muses, leaning forward and looking at Junhui like he's trying to puzzle him out. Then, with stunning accuracy: "You're going back in a few weeks, yeah?"

“I…” Junhui stops, fidgets with the edge of his shirt and tries to formulate his answer. “I could go back now, if I wanted, I mean.”

“Do you want to?”

Junhui falters. “No,” he says. “I think I owe someone an apology.”

Joshua hums a little bit, and Junhui rushes to elaborate, feeling like he has to fill in the silence. “As in, I said something I shouldn’t have said, and now I think… I think things are ruined unless I fix them.”

Joshua props his guitar back up, picks an arpeggio in thought. “You confessed,” he says, very calmly.

“What - how did you even.” Junhui starts. “We’ve spoken like twice, I have no idea how we ended up here, and now you’re reading my mind?”

The other boy tilts his head, smiling. “You’re a far more open book than you would suppose.”

It gives Junhui pause. “Am I really,” he mumbles, mulling it over briefly. Then, deciding that denying it would be a moot point, he says, “Wonwoo says I shouldn’t take it back, not if I meant it.”

“Wonwoo being your best friend back home, I’m guessing.” Joshua chews on his lip. “Good philosophy, but when you go back, you know, you can’t take him with you.”

The words hit him like a brick, leaving Junhui momentarily stunned. “No, I can’t,” he concedes, very slowly. “But I did mean it, Joshua-hyung. Where does that leave me, then?”

“Have you ever stood in the water and let the waves pull sand out under you and wash more in, so you’re anchored deeper and deeper until eventually it would take a huge force to actually make you budge?”

Junhui jerks his head up to look at Joshua, blinking rapidly. He’s described the exact sensation Junhui had rediscovered upon returning here - mouth agape, he nods. 

“It’s like that,” Joshua says, airily, ostentatiously strumming the muted strings of his guitar to make his point. He waits for Junhui to nod again, slowly, in some semblance of understanding. Then he rearranges his fingers and begins to strum. 

“Anyway,” he says, looking inexplicably pleased with himself for some reason Junhui cannot begin to fathom as the beat begins to pick up. “Here’s Wonderwall.”

-

“I was wondering when you would talk to me,” Mingyu says, sounding just the tiniest bit hurt. Pursing his lips, he sets his mouth very precisely around his straw and sucks obstinately at his coke float. Junhui had paid, preempting the complaint.

“Sorry,” Junhui apologises, automatically. “I just… I guess I didn’t wanna drag you into it, that’s all.”

“He’s my best friend, and you’re my new really good one,” Mingyu points out drily. “Me not being involved was never a possibility here.”

Junhui slowly breathes in, holds the breath, and then exhales again. “Yeah, well,” he says. “You’re right.”

Mingyu smiles a little at that. “Ah, a phrase few ever afford me.”

“Sorry,” Junhui says again, staring at his own drink and watching the way the ice cream dissolves. “I should’ve known you would’ve been affected.”

All previous petulance gone, Mingyu nudges Junhui with his elbow. “It’s fine,” Mingyu says, gently. “You’re probably bummed out enough as it is.”

Junhui huffs a laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “You know, I think I’d forgotten up til now, but he’s definitely stayed exactly the same as he was when I knew him.” Pause. “Guess some things never change.”

Mingyu fiddles with the paper of his discarded straw sleeve, thinking. “You told him you liked him, didn’t you?”

What _is _it with everyone around him and cutting straight to the point? Junhui sighs. “Let me guess. I’m easy to read.”

“No-o,” Mingyu says, but it’s an extremely feeble attempt at a lie. “Well. Yes. You were so solemn and quiet and I _know_ you guys haven’t spoken for two weeks, and unless you somehow stole his favourite hoodie and accidentally tore it in the half an hour it took you guys to buy food and get back, then.” 

Mingyu’s candour is always refreshing. “Somebody’s speaking from experience,” Junhui teases. Then he sobers a little, looking out the window to watch a troop of students . “You’ve known each other for a long time, huh.”

“Kinda,” Mingyu allows. “He’s pretty obvious after a while, actually.”

Junhui raises an eyebrow, intrigued. “Yeah?”

“He’s,” Mingyu starts, “...Careful.”

Junhui stares, waiting. Mingyu takes his sweet time scooping ice cream out of his coke, inadvertently getting it all over the corners of his mouth as he sucks it off the spoon. When he talks it’s a little muffled. “Myungho doesn’t like putting himself out there, ever. I mean with personal things, of course. He’ll audition for a concert in front of the entire school if he wants to get in.”

“But people?” Mingyu blows out one cheek and drums his fingers on the table in thought. “Not sure I’ve ever seen him approach one.”

The way it’s put makes Junhui laugh. “You make him sound like a hermit, ‘Gyu. He doesn’t seem like the type.”

“Only because people approach him first!” Mingyu protests, committed to his point. “If they didn’t - he wouldn’t have any friends, probably. That’s what I think, anyway.”

Junhui purses his lips. It confirms what he’s gathered for himself, but still. “Why?”

“Disappointment,” Mingyu tells him. “I think we can all relate to that.”

He knows that feeling especially well. Junhui looks down at the condensation from his drink that is making his cup slide about on the table, puddling wetly at its base. “Don’t you mind?” He blurts, all of a sudden. 

“Mind what?”

He thinks Mingyu must surely know what he’s asking - wonders if he’s just avoiding the question, too, the way Junhui is regretting having asked it at all. “I,” Junhui starts, then looks at Mingyu, who is patiently watching him through long lashes with an earnestness Junhui isn’t sure he feels entirely worthy of at the moment.

He looks away. “Nevermind,” Junhui says. Outside the sidewalk is glaringly bright. There’s a chime as someone steps into the shop. The sandcastle he has built is threatening to cave.

-

“What is it you want, Junhui.”

They do still work at the same place, after all, and so it had been the path of least resistance for Junhui to gather up his nerves and just _approach_ Minghao during shift. He’s dressed in a long sleeved shirt over knee length shorts, a baseball cap wedged firmly onto his head, and it seems absurd, somehow, that even that should hit Junhui with a pang of longing.

“I,” Junhui says, very slowly. The pieces have not worked themselves out, not for him, and it is now looking at Minghao that he is painstakingly tugging the knots apart, figuring out how to put them back together, wondering if there is an unseen clock he is working against. “You came up to me, back then.” He’s not sure what he’s trying to say. “Why?”

Minghao looks - for lack of a better word - irritated. He turns back to look along the length of the beach, but it’s deserted, and when he swivels his attention back to Junhui his arms cross in front of him. “I thought I knew you,” he says, curt. “Is it so strange to make sure?”

_No_, Junhui thinks, but then: _Not unless it’s you._ Mingyu had set that in place for him, along the way. “Did you?” he asks, taking a risk he isn’t clear if he can afford. “Do you think you do, now?”

“Junhui.” Minghao’s voice is firm, but he looks less hostile now, even if the set of his mouth is still grim. “We’re on shift.”

It feels like stepping back from a sand creation to realise it’s too close to the lick of the water, watching the waves wash in and out, breath bated. Something suddenly clicks. “I approached you first, didn’t I? Way back then?”

Minghao’s expression doesn’t change. But he doesn’t say any further, either.

“So… so if that’s the case,” Junhui says, “I think I get it now.”

Somewhere along the way his own gaze has dropped to his feet; he doesn’t tug it back up. He can feel his hands fisting repeatedly in the cotton fabric of his college shirt, and hope it doesn’t make him look any smaller than he already feels. “I - I still have a month.”

Finally Minghao says something. “Is that so?”

Junhui glances back up sharply, almost taken aback by the question of something that has become so obvious to him. “It’s better than nothing, isn’t it?” he points out. 

His voice is almost childish, pitchy at the edges the way it gets when he lets himself slip. Already he can feel the flush seeping up his neck that has nothing to do with the deep boil of the sun; _I’ve done it now_, he thinks, but grits his teeth, and tries very hard not to waver.

Minghao looks at him for a very long time, nearly expressionless but for the flicker of his fingers against his own elbow. He looks away. Looks back, mouth opening briefly, before it snaps shut.

With something of a shift Minghao unfolds his arms, and for the first time all summer Junhui detects something else that hasn’t ever been there - briefly, fleetingly, he looks lost.

When he does speak it is soft enough that Junhui nearly mistakes it for the wash of the ocean. “Maybe it is,” Minghao murmurs. With it there is a hint of a smile.

-

Mingyu has his tongue out, and he’s shifting everywhere, chasing after something. A toned, tan arm rests on Junhui’s thigh as Mingyu leans across him - still with his tongue out - still hellbent on pursuit. He suffers it, patiently, but can’t help the smile that’s creeping over his face, either.

“You’re disgusting.” That’s Minghao, on Mingyu’s other side, glancing up from a book he’s been reading with a pair of glasses perched elegantly on the edge of his nose. Junhui isn’t even sure he’s myopic; he makes a mental note to ask.

“It’th the thrill of the chathe,” Mingyu grits out, distractedly. It’s difficult to hear him with his tongue lolling everywhere. “Ith I catch it, I win.”

Minghao inhales deeply, for a long few counts, and then exhales for even longer, just loudly enough that Junhui can hear it clearly from the other end of the car seats. Mingyu had insisted on driving the three of them up to _the best spot overlooking the beach, ever_, and when they had gotten there he’d insisted they all sit together in the back, cramped as it might be.

He hadn’t been wrong about the view, though. Despite the sticky humidity and excess of mosquitoes the outcrop overlooks the beach below splendidly, white sand unfolding before them as far as he can see. In the afternoon the glint off the water is nearly blinding; blinking rapidly, Junhui turns back to find Minghao looking at him, and shares a grin in commiseration of Mingyu’s antics.

There’s a sudden grip on his knee. “Got it!” Mingyu announces. His exuberance is bright for a split second before he’s hacking desperately, forearm to his mouth as he wheezes. “Blegh. Blegh! Bleagh! What the hell was that?”

Minghao snaps his book shut with a _thud_. “You’re a fucking _moron_,” he says, but reaches for a water bottle in the front seat compartment anyway, uncapping it and handing it to Mingyu. “I hope you’re well aware.”

Mingyu isn’t able to defend himself, chugging the water bottle with tears in his eyes. Junhui pats him consolingly on the back. “There there, ‘Gyu,” he says, soothingly. “Myungho didn’t mean that.”

“I really did,” Minghao cuts in, drily, but when their eyes meet there’s a crooked slant to his mouth. It is instinctive for Junhui to commit it to memory when he has two weeks left of the home he did not think he would find.

“Fair,” Junhui chirps, agreeably. Familiar, his hand crawls its way up to Mingyu’s head, ruffling his hair while he can’t defend himself. “He meant it, and I think he had a point this time round.” 

It earns him a snort and a shove in the shoulder from Minghao - Junhui wonders if this is his place - far out enough to find respite from the heat, close enough to shore that he doesn’t get pulled into the sea.

Mingyu finally emerges, wiping his eyes dry and tongue hanging out like he’s trying to air it dry of the taste of mosquito still. “Few understand my genius,” he quips, loftily, then smacks his lips as if attempting to force his mouth to work. “Including, I suppose, myself.”

“As long as you’re aware,” Junhui tells him, grinning. The sun catches in his eyes, and for a moment he can’t see. “As long as you know.”

-

It feels strange to be standing at the train station with all his bags, having taken the first bus out of town in the morning. The thing about leaving is that it never feels quite so grand as you imagine it to be; the tedium wears a routine into the act, wears the edges down until it’s almost easy to bear.

His train back into Seoul isn’t for another twenty minutes. Absently Junhui rubs at his stomach, thinking about the breakfast he hadn’t had the time to have. A summer spent away hasn’t rid him of his assumptions of convenience - and now he’s going back, so the point is moot.

He hears the footsteps before he’s really aware of any approach - Junhui turns at the sound of his name spoken in Mandarin, barely catches sight of a comically bright neon green tee before its owner doubles over to brace himself on his knees, panting.

“Oh,” Junhui says, not quite understanding why his voice comes out funny at the edges. “Hey. You came.”

Minghao straightens up and shoots him the dirtiest look Junhui has ever had the fortune of witnessing. “You’re leaving and you didn’t _tell me_,” he says, acidic. “How could I _not?_”

Despite how closely they’ve toed the line about this subject, drawn their boundaries again and again and left a flurry of smudged lines in the sand, it surprises Junhui that Minghao would come. “I didn’t know if you would want to,” he confesses, fixing his gaze on a pillar behind Minghao’s head. “I didn’t want to put you on the spot.”

He doesn’t like the look on Minghao’s face, doesn’t want it to be the last memory of him he has. “Hey,” he tries, gunning for a lighter note. “Where’s Mingyu?”

“Mingyu told me I should go alone.” Minghao looks briefly pensive, but otherwise doesn’t budge. He gets back onto the point. “You said you got it, didn’t you?” Pause. “I didn’t take you for a liar.”

“I did, but.” Junhui stops. It isn’t that easy.

Because now - it is easy for him to be present when Minghao is a metre away, looking at him and having wanted to be here, even without having been asked. But when the burnt skin on the tip of his nose peels off and the red on his nape fades away there is very little in the way of promises that he can give. 

“_‘It’s better than nothing_’,” Minghao repeats, obstinately. “Shouldn’t I at least get to say goodbye?”

Something Mingyu had said, very near the start, flashes with stunning clarity into his head. _For life, I guess._ Maybe he’s been looking at this all wrong, making himself a concession that should be excused. He thinks he gets it this time - if not, then he must at least be close.

“Yeah,” he breathes, softly, suddenly awash in guilt. “Sorry. I - I want to keep in touch, if you’ll let me.”

The fight bleeds instantly out of Minghao’s visage, and he finally takes a step closer, reaching out in a moment of uncharacteristic gentleness to straighten the collar of Junhui’s tacky touristy Hawaiian-print shirt. “I’d - like that,” he mumbles, glancing up in the direction of the tracks and looking briefly distracted. 

“Thanks for everything.” The words are sticking in his mouth now, heavy and cloying as they crawl out of his throat. “And I’m sorry I can’t say anything else,” Junhui says, the tide rising in his ears with the rush of the train pulling in. “You know - this - it’s just a promise.”

“I know,” Minghao says, patting his chest once as he steps away. His hair whips violently across his face in the oncoming gust, and he’s smiling. “But, you know, it’s a promise.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [ twt ](http://twitter.com/frogbabey)


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